Posted: Tue May 29, 18 12:43 am Post subject: water
i need to get water to the new orchard
on grid is unlikely due to cost etc etc but we have a big pond 25m linear/6m vertical and a small stream under bridge 15 m linear/5m vertical . both have issues as one is under a foot bridge and both cross well used footpaths, the pond would need to get through blackthorn to the fence
then it needs distributing over about an acre and less than a couple of meters of vertical
1 half a dozen folk could do the weekly watering with a lot of buckets ( i did it with a large jam pan and a 50 lt stock pot as a resevoir ) easier than i did but with a bit more digging in the stream bed and a rope for filling the bucket it could be relatively relaxing
2 a shaduf and guttering system would do the lift and can be knocked up from rope and sticks etc ( the public )
3 various pumps are available ( foot path, the public ) but what is "green" if poss and effective ( certainly )?
a simple, portable pump that can raise say 50 litres in a couple of minutes out of the stream and pump it 50 m would be ace if such things exist.
searching for the hearts and minds of the neighbours to see if they have a hose and no water meter is ongoing
but....?
Slim
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 6613 Location: New England (In the US of A)
Posted: Tue May 29, 18 1:33 am Post subject:
Are you looking for the short term, or the long term?
My first instinct is a honda trash pump going to lay flat tubing that has been tunneled under any foot paths, or artfully wired up above them, and into drip lines, but that's pricey and noisy, and quite likely overkill
I was once on an agroforestry setup in Belize that had an electric pump hooked up to a single solar panel. When weather was good it filled a cistern. I don't know enough about it to provide much more help, but it makes me think your big first hurdles are piping over/under footpath(s) and possibly on-site storage?
I was thinking solar power too Slim, but probably only for short periods. Using it to fill a cistern once of twice a week would be a good idea, but sometimes we have periods of several weeks where the sun doesn't really do it's duty. A small removable wind turbine would be another alternative to power the pump. Probably if you could get the manpower reliably, the bucket chain from the stream would be best as blackthorn can be nasty stuff; unless you can get permission for a gate in the hedge.
Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 34535 Location: Hereford
Posted: Tue May 29, 18 11:48 am Post subject:
Secrete a ram pump under the bridge and Bury pipe work. Free, constant water.
pumping sounds good but getting under the tarmac paths might be a bit tricky to get permission and rather difficult to do "privately" so portable and supervised over the path while pumping might be the only pumping option.
a ram or solar pump and cistern would be nice as would installing permanent pipe but i have a feeling that the stream could have little or zero flow in a proper drought which means we would need to swap to the less convenient pond option when need is greatest.
hopefully by next summer they will be established enough to be drought proof so it is a short term issue for this site ( the chances of a pond or stream for subsequent sites are not high so low cost would be good.
i was considering that an electric bike has a few options for driving a pump either from the mechanical power of the chain drive or the rather powerful battery pack (36v/ 25ah that will put out enough current to drive a 250w motor with lots of torque )
if it will push me up a hill i suspect it has the poke to push water around if i can rig a decent pto for a pump
human powered pumps exist but owt that will do the job ( 200 lt in an hour or so ) is going to be less than portable
not watering would be ideal but i suspect that unless we get rain at least every couple of weeks watering might be needed to keep losses to a minimum.
i have pruned to shape them which will reduce transpiration a bit so with a bit of luck emergency watering will be rare but if it does have to be done i dont fancy a repeat of 60 buckets out of the stream , up a steep slope under a bridge, over the bridge parapet, across to the fence and into a huge pan, then distribution to the trees
if the stream to pan bit was as simple as lay out hose and start it running i would be a happy bunny.
Irrigation isn't going to encourage the roots to find water deeper down.
gregotyn
Joined: 24 Jun 2010 Posts: 2201 Location: Llanfyllin area
Posted: Tue May 29, 18 2:45 pm Post subject:
Does your local council have anything to do with the orchard? If so they may be prepared to bring water for you to the site, when needed. If they will help, you may be able to get a water tower to store the water in, until you need it; and also catch rain water, when it rains!
I would be inclined toward storage on site, and be able to take advantage of rain water, as well as pumping from the stream/pond when needed. Anything the Council can do to move 'dirty' water from places to your site would be good.
Maybe asking a local farmer if he would help with a tanker. I would be looking out for old central heating fuel tanks, cleaned out they could be acceptable? Ask a dealer in these new double walled tanks if they can help, and they will get advertising on the tank/s for their fuels and tanks? thus stealing a march on their competitors.
having just been for a look it is only the low lying pears that seem to be suffering, i suspect they found it a bit damp to start with and then a bit dry for good root growth
the big bare root ones that went into slightly dryer spots are all doing ok and the more recent pot grown ones look happy as.
they did all get a bucket each 2 wks ago and we did have rain about a week ago
the soil is clay and gravel in various ratios so once they have set hair roots they should be fine if they head downwards a bit
at the mo the top foot or so is fairly dry
getting a layer of mulch around them when we do the july mow might be wise
thinking of mowing i recon some sickle work to reduce the vegetation around each basket might be a wise move.
as we have a 50% chance of rain on three days i didn't water yet but trying to plan for a drought just in case seems sensible
re the big scale long term water stuff it isnt quite what i might need but thanks anyway and it is info to file in "i remember...", what i might need is 200 lt a week in an easy couple of hours to make sure they survive if it is a dry summer.
49 out of 50 rosa rugosa are doing well and one is probably going to make it so hopefully they will grow enough over the summer to provide some wind break effect along the fence line for winter.
Jam Lady
Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 2573 Location: New Jersey, USA
Posted: Tue May 29, 18 10:05 pm Post subject:
How do you apply the water? Pouring a bucket of H2O on the ground around the tree is very inefficient. Water will not penetrate deeply, there's evaporative loss from sun / wind.
Way back when I had a community garden plot (decades ago and in a different state) I would fill one gallon plastic milk jugs with water, cap, load up my car and drive over to water my vegetable plants. I used 2 liter soda bottles with small holes in the bottom, tapped to a stake to stabilize. Fill from transport jugs using a funnel. Water slowly drips out of the bottom, efficiently penetrating deeper into the soil than it would just pouring same volume over the ground. Israeli technique.
Take small diameter PVC pipe, drill holes around the bottom, cap bottom. Drive into the ground around each tree, pour water in to slowly leak out where you want to encourage root growth.
For trees - have you ever seen Treegator watering bags? https://treegator.com/ They are pricey but could you bodge up your own?
Mulch after some wet weather and you’ll be fine. We’re on solid clay with a few gravelly patches, the year after we planted it was so dry big cracks appeared in the turf but near enough everything survived.
If you are thinking of starting other sites, a water bowser that can be pulled behind a vehicle would be useful, especially if you can rig up some sort of water collector on it. I didn't realise the paths were tarmac, as you can usually burrow through a grass or mud path, but as you say, not tarmac.
wellington womble
Joined: 08 Nov 2004 Posts: 15051 Location: East Midlands
Posted: Wed May 30, 18 2:23 pm Post subject:
It doesn't help with getting water, but a friend filled ‘oil’ drums with water from a tractor set up and drilled a small hole in the bottom. I remember it took some experimenting to get the right size hole so the water drizzled out over a long period and then he used to leave them for a while after that to encourage root growth. Might make it mess of a chore long term?
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